In a typical carton feeding system for feeding flat carton blanks or sleeves, the stacks of cartons generally are loaded in stacks into a magazine and thereafter are individually picked from the magazine for feeding to a downstream carton conveyor. In particular, for flat, wrap style cartons, which are designed and/or adapted to be folded about groups of articles such as bottles, cans, or other, similar articles arranged in groups of two, four, six, twelve, etc., the cartons generally will be fed in a substantially flat lying attitude into a position whereby the cartons will be engaged by a series of lugs moving along the downstream carton conveyor. The lugs of the downstream carton conveyor convey the flat-blank, wrap style cartons along the carton conveyor for feeding into a packaging machine or similar system for wrapping of the cartons about the groups of articles.
In many conventional carton feeders, the cartons are pulled forwardly and out of the magazine by a vacuum cup or similar suction device, and are fed between a pair of feed rollers, which pull the cartons forwardly and out of the magazine and feed them along a path of travel. However, with such conventional carton feeders, the cartons generally can only be fed in a substantially straight path of travel, extending through a pick point or engagement point between the feed rollers and to the input end of the downstream carton conveyor. Thus, the location of a downstream carton conveyor with respect to the carton feeder often is limited since the cartons generally must be fed in a substantially straight direction or path of travel extending substantially perpendicular to the pick point between the feeder wheel and the draw roller. As a result, such carton feeding systems generally are located or positioned in limited alignments that can require significant space or area for feeding of the cartons along their complete path of travel for consistently feeding the flat, wrap style cartons into the downstream carton conveyor.
Accordingly, it can be seen that a need exists for a carton feeding system that addresses the foregoing and other related and unrelated problems in the art.